21 dead, more than 600 missing in raging California wildfires

In many other cases, detectives used telephones to track down people who are unaccounted for. Around 560 people have been reported missing, although the hope is that they are unable to get in touch since nearly all communication systems are down. "Today, I haven't gotten it once, and that's because we're starting to see more".

"A fire starting after 10 o'clock at night, under 50-plus miles per hour winds, under absolutely dry, dry fuel beds, every one of those fires had a fighting chance to get going long before our firefighters could even be able to get there".

By Saturday, the winds will shift to the northeast, bringing the unsafe Sundowner condition that has driven so many wildfires along the Central Coast. "They won't tell us nothing".

There's no rain in the forecast for the next seven days, meaning these conditions are expected to persist.

State Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa said he received an alert Sunday night to evacuate, but by that time he had already chose to get out. He also said deputies have stopped escorting people into evacuation areas to retrieve medications. "If you have a place to go, go", he said.

Giordano said Sonoma County officials did send out warnings to residents as the fire approached Sunday.

Fire has consumed or significantly damaged at least five wineries in Napa Valley in a blow to an industry that pumps $58 billion annually into the state's economy, and destroyed at least 3,500 homes and other structures, according to CalFire.

Derek Southard has been anxious about his 71-year-old father, Daniel, since he heard Sunday that fires were blazing through Northern California.

All that is left of her mother's mobile home in Santa Rosa is charred ruins, the AP says. I need her back. "He texted me at midnight and asked if I was having fun at the wedding".

Clearer conditions made for a reassuring buzz of activity at the Cal Fire Air Attack Base north of Santa Rosa, where Sonoma County airport manager Jon Stout reported "a steady stream of tankers" coming and going in rotation. He looked outside and didn't, so he and his wife went to bed. "And a lot of that has to do with the fact that the fires ignited overnight". "There were times at night when my street was like a freeway", Hammar said. But officials believe many of those people will be found. Among the dead in Napa were a couple aged 99 and 100 years old who had been married for 75 years, KTVU-TV said.

"This house was one of the first ones hit (in the subdivision)", their son Mike Rippey told CNN affiliate KPIX on Tuesday.

The Wine Country wildfires have created the dirtiest air ever seen in the Bay Area, regulators said, as they intensified health warnings about the smoke and soot. "He never made it".

The blazes included the so-called Tubbs fire in Napa County, about 113 kilometres north of San Francisco in an area world-famous for its vineyards. Only the most frail - those in a nursing facility - left the property in the initial evacuation, Techel said.

October is typically when California gets its largest and most damaging wildfires. Blocks of some neighborhoods were almost obliterated with nothing left but charred debris, broken walls, chimneys and the steel frames of burned-out cars.